Shorter trip to New Orleans this time and the weather was erratic. One morning there’d be frost on the ground, the next I’d be swealtering in a t-shirt. Fair bit of rain too. I’d thought this trip I’d get out of town and paint in rural Louisana and the swamp and marshland but, conversely, the best place to paint when it’s raining is in the Quarter under the awnings.

Immediately to my left in the one above was a burned out building from a fire a few days earlier. I met the neighbours of the burned house and they took me inside. Though completely blackened, much of the old grand wood panelling was still intact. You could tell how beautiful it used to be. It reminded me of the Titanic.

Local plein air hero and painter friend Phil Sandusky recommended I visit Yscloskey, a nearby fishing village. It proved to be both beautiful and fascincating. About four boatfuls of oysters were delivered to the dock in the front of the painting during the first two-hour session I had there. Whilst painting the sketch below, a man came out to chat and wouldn’t let me go back to New Orleans without taking some of the Redfish he’d caught that day with me.

The last one is the only one vaguely approaching exploring the swamp. It was done on the one day I got out there and had about an hour to paint. You have to keep an eye out for the alligators that cross the path you walk in on and for the venemous Cottonmouth snakes. I saw three the day I was there.